当我考虑当今困扰建筑行业的劳动力缩短问题时，我想起了“罗马被烧毁的尼罗（Nero）摆弄”一词。

Our industry faces an issue that, if not immediately confronted, could lead to its ultimate ruin. Even though the lack of craft and project-level labor is the No. 1 issue in the construction industry, little is being done to address it.

我们都同意我们面临的民族问题的严重性。在建筑金融管理协会的ConfIndex调查中，受访者对其公司的可行性进行了排名，他们一贯将劳动力短缺排名为最大的关注点。此外，在美国相关总承包商调查中，有86％的成员最近报告说他们正在努力填补每小时的手工艺工作或受薪专业职位。

While there are initiatives underway to address this issue, the real problem is that these efforts are fragmented across individual associations and independent companies. At the heart of the problem is self-interest—everyone is worried about their own market share, and union and non-union associations are hesitant to work together.

这种零碎的方法不会引起建筑行业需要向后代提出建筑工程为何回报的国家的关注。我的建议很简单：行业中的所有参与者都必须齐心协力组成劳动力峰会并集体采取行动。由于到目前为止现有的努力还没有下降，因此整个行业倡议是唯一的解决方案。

我绝对坚信，分裂的建筑业无法承受未来的挑战，如果不围绕解决这个问题的解决方案，它将遭受严重的后果。

该行业的曝光率增加将帮助所有人。

Future generations are largely unaware of the abundance of opportunities that the construction industry offers. Unfortunately, millennials have grown up in a society that portrays a college education as the only path to success.

成功的路径

千禧一代是否知道建筑提供的成功途径？他们知道自己可以获得免费培训，甚至可以获得报酬以学习所需的技能吗？此外，他们是否知道一旦熟练的工匠或工匠在25岁时就离开学徒计划，他或她可以赚取高于平均水平的工资和福利，并有机会赚更多的钱？

The proposed industrywide workforce summit could lead to a marketing and social-media campaign to promote the various employment opportunities available in construction, including for work in the trades or as an estimator or providing site-level leadership as a foreman, superintendent or project manager. By giving industry stakeholders equal representation and enabling the target audience to decide what it wants to pursue, the campaign could provide a central source of information that helps students and others to decide if they want to be an electrician or an ironworker. It also could give them an overview of all the skilled trades.

如果我们国家的未来劳动力真正了解我们行业所提供的选择的深度和广度，也许我们可以扭转不利影响其吸引和保留未来人才能力的趋势。

I can think of no initiative more important for the future of the construction industry. If someone has other ideas, we should all be eager to hear them. But, as an industry, we need to stop wringing our hands about the problem and do something—together!

If not now, when?